It's Because I Got Hot, Right?
by princess-enigma
Summary: Una Pendragon has always considered herself a gorgeous creature but in the holidays between her fifth and sixth year she has apparently blossomed. All she wants is to finish her Hogwarts education with high enough marks to be a Creature Healer but these boys just won't leave her alone!
1. Chapter 1

The dim light in her bedroom was her first clue that she was awake far earlier than she needed to be. The breeze blowing through her window was unseasonably cool, gathering up the silky green sheets she had kicked away in her sleep, Una rolled onto her side, tucking her arm under her pillow and came face to face with the reason she was awake at... Did that clock really say 5:13am?! Una's tawny owl was sitting on her bedside table, perched precariously on a stack of books hooting dolefully, one leg outstretched towards her wrapped with a scroll.

"What could anyone possibly need to tell me at 5:15 in the morning?!" She groaned, reaching to fumble the letter off her owl, Satele's leg.

'Una!

I just overheard my dad getting home from work! You'll never guess what's being hosted at Hogwarts this year?! THE TRIWIZARD CUP! Meet me in the city for breakfast before we catch the train?!

Aph '

Typical, her gossipy best friend had absolutely no respect for normal sleeping hours, Aphrodite was the child of a wizard and a hippy, love-child muggle-born witch who still woke with the sun for their morning constitutionals which meant Aph had a crazy hippy muggle name and also had never fully grasped the concept of 'sleeping in'. Still, the Triwizard Tournament, at her school! What a way to spice up their sixth year! Knowing full well, despite her best intentions, she was now too excited to sleep she sat up and penned a quick reply to Aphrodite, offering to meet her at their favourite muggle pancake shop at 7:30 and sent it out into the cool morning with an unimpressed Satele,

"Extra owl nuts when you get back, promise." Una murmured to her, stroking two fingers over Satele's wings as she whooshed softly out the window.

Una stretched languidly, yawning and turned to appraise her reflection critically in the mirror; her mother had been promising her for years that one day she would grow out of her puppy fat and this summer it had finally happened, she definitely wasn't one of the thin women in Aphrodites weird muggle magazines, but the smooth curves of her body were making her a damn sight happier than her vaguely dumpy figure had up until now. Smiling happily at the prospects of starting her sixth year with a lot more confidence, Una swaggered off to the shower, snagging a black dress off her laundry hamper on her way.

Despite having woken up hours ago, Una was still running late, racing up the high street, her wet red hair tumbling out of the bun she had haphazardly wrapped it in as she left the house 40 minutes ago. Una had dropped her trunk and Satele's cage into the cloak room at Kings Cross before meeting Aphrodite which was why she was so late.

"Thank Merlin, I thought you didn't love me anymore!"

Typical melodramatic Aph, leapt up from the booth she was folded behind and jumped out at Una, slightly hindered by her impossibly long legs which always took longer than you would expect to completely unfold, Una always joked that Aph was basically a human Praying Mantis.

"How is it that in six weeks you've become even more clingy?" Una sneered companionably as she allowed Aph to fold her into her twig-like arms.

"I'm sorry that it's so wrong to miss you, Grinch" she said, squishing Una to her chest and then depositing her into the booth.

"So the Triwizard Cup, huh?" Una asked laughingly as she picked up a menu.

"Forget the cup! This means we get a Yule Ball! Fancy dress robes, dates and dancing!" Aphrodite sighed dreamily, "it's going to be magical."

Una rolled her eyes but in the spirit of friendship she let Aph ramble on about her plans for the Christmas party, she was a really good friend, the topic carried them through breakfast, up the street and all the way into their carriage on the Hogwarts Express.

The first few weeks of term were fairly standard, except for the undercurrent of excitement that was palpable in their classrooms. Una and Aphrodite were sixth year Gryffindor students and after the stress of the previous years OWL exams everyone in her classes was easily swept away in excited gossip and chatter about the upcoming guests to the castle.

Halfway through their sixth week Una and Aphrodite were in what was possibly their most unruly care of magical creatures class to date, care was Unas most cherished subject, it was her ambition to be a creature healer when she left Hogwarts and for this reason she was one of Hagrids favourite pupils. As it was their sixth year they had finally moved on to assisting Hagrid with husbandry of creatures rather than just studying and observing them, today Hagrid had arranged a litter of Crups for them, magical creatures that strongly resembled muggle Jack Russells in every way except for their curious forked tails which were the subject of todays lesson.

The class had been broken into groups of four and each group had been given a Crup as Hagrid began to explain the correct method of removing their additional tail, Una and Aphrodite were sharing a pup with Fred and George Weasley, the snoozy little creature dozing in Una's arms.

"Righ', ye've all got yer Crups so listen here." Hagrid announced as he handed out the last wriggling puppy, "The on'y diff'rence between a Crup an' a muggle Jack Russell is the extra tail so according to the International Standard o' Secrecy, we have to get the extra tail off. Now don' worry, if yeh do the severin' charm righ' this won' hurt em' a bit."

Hagrid scruffed the last squirming pup in his left hand gently and pinned it to his desk with some difficulty as the Crup was enthusiastically trying to lick his fingers.

"Righ' now as they're on'y pups they're still pretty wriggly so yeh'll need to work as a team to make sure yeh' do this righ' an' don' hurt em', Una why don' yeh come up here and give me a hand?"

Una grinned at Hagrid and handed Fred her squirming Crup, bemusedly noticing the way he smiled shyly at her and then squeezed past the front row of students, as she made her way up there was a low wolf-whistle and one of the Ravenclaw students murmured something smirkingly to his classmate, Una didn't hear his words but apparently Fred Weasley did and judging by his reaction it had not been polite.

"What was that Davies?" He growled, looking disgusted, Roger at least had the decency to look sheepish. Choosing to ignore the boys Una continued heading towards Hagrid. Obviously Hagrid had not noticed Roger and Fred's brief disagreement as he ploughed on with the demonstration as soon as Una had joined him.

Ten minutes later the groups were divided onto separate benches, trying hard to control their exuberant pups long enough to gently remove their extra tail, while Fred scruffed the fluffy creature the way Hagrid had showed them Una was laughingly trying to convince the puppy to stop trying to roll over and lick her fingers when Roger Davies sidled over to her and leant in close between her and Fred,

"The Crup's not the only thing that wants to lick you all over you know." He winked at her sleazily. Aphrodite, who was on Una's other side scoffed loudly at Roger's transparent efforts but Fred looked up at him and for the first time Una saw him lost for words, his face contorted with anger.

"In your dreams Davies, I haven't forgotten the Bubotuber pus you threw all over me last Easter." She said scathingly, turning from him to focus on the cheerful baby animal on her desk. Roger leant in even closer and whispered in what he clearly thought was a sexual voice,

"Yeah well, you were a fatty then, luckily for you, you got sexy over the summer."

Suddenly beside herself with hurt and rage, Una abandoned the creature she was trying to restrain and whipped her wand out hitting Roger with the first hex that came to her mind, unfortunately for him Fred had overheard his words and hexed him as well, the result was Roger Davies flat on his back with what looked like custard erupting from his nose.

"Now wha' on earth is goin' on back here?!" Hagrid thundered, stumping quickly to Una's table. "Una, Fred, I would've expected more from yeh'!"

"He insulted her Hagrid!" Aphrodite shouted, fists flailing and restrained from leaping onto Roger only by a terrified George Weasleys arm around her waist, George had clearly missed the conversation and was looking equal parts bewildered and frightened by Aph's outburst.

"So yeh tell a teacher, yeh don' take matters inter yer own hands! I'm sorry Una, Fred, but this'll have to mean detention, Roger yeh'll have one as well as soon as Madame Pomfrey stops yeh oozin', yeh slimy git." Hagrid was clearly displeased by Rogers behaviour but Una knew he was right, she shouldn't have cursed him.


	2. Chapter 2

Since being back at Hogwarts Una had noticed people treating her differently, boys paid more attention to her now, the girls had somehow become both nicer and meaner and even Aphrodite had commented more than once how good she was looking, but she would be lying if she said the way Roger had treated her today hadn't shaken her, she wasn't used to being treated like meat like that.

"Helloooooooo? Earth to Una?" Aphrodite waved a hand in front of Unas glazed blue eyes, jerking her back into the present where she was supposed to be eating dinner.

"Sorry, what..?" Una had absolutely no idea what Aph had been talking about, but judging by the frustrated expression on her face it had been important.

"I was saying, what are you wearing on Friday? You know, when the other schools arrive?" Una sighed, turns out it hadn't been that important at all.

"Well as I'm at school, I had assumed I'd be wearing my uniform?" She replied sarcastically, annoyed now at having been disrupted. "McGonagall has already said we have to wear our robes..."

Aphrodite looked crestfallen, stabbing at her yorkshire pudding moodily.

"How am I supposed to blow peoples pants off in this sack?" She grumbled, picking at her robes. Blessedly the conversation was interrupted by the Weasley twins.

"Why the long face Aphrodite?" George asked cheerfully, snagging one of her sausages and chomping it cheerfully.

"McGonagall hates fashion is what's wrong." She replied broodily. Both of the twins looked askance at Una who translated through a mouthful of peas.

"She can' wear a dress to meet the 'urmstrangs on Fri-ay" she mumbled thickly, aware that she probably looked like a pig. George laughed heartily and looked back at Aphrodite to tease her but Fred caught Una's eye with the same shy smile he had worn in Care this morning, under the cover of George heckling Aph he murmured to her,

"Sorry about this morning, that Davies is a right prat, don't listen to him" Una felt her cheeks warm as she looked up at him

"It's ok, I've always been pretty chubby, I just deal with it, it's only natural that some people are interested only now that I've lost weight." Una shrugged.

"For the record I've always thought you were gorgeous." Fred seemed to immediately regret this, he flushed red and nudged George to follow him as he sped away from their table. Una turned back to her plate feeling much more cheerful.

"What are you smiling about?" Aphrodite asked.

"Nothing" Una replied, laying her knife and fork across her plate. "Shall we go up then? We have all that potions homework to get through.

"Yeah alright." Aph stood beside her "To hell we go!"

Fred lay awake that night, his arms folded behind his head, staring up at the tapestry. This wasn't the first night he had stayed awake thinking about Una Pendragon, he had had a crush on her since he had first seen her on the train, a bossy, chubby little brunette still missing a few of her adult teeth, bossing another first year around about the proper ways to transport a cat. Although she was still about the same height as she had been five years ago almost everything else had changed about Una, she was curvier now, she has a full mouth of straight, pearly white teeth and last year she had arrived with Salamander red hair instead of her natural brown, but she was still the tiny, bossy creature willing to stand up for the proper treatment of any animal or indeed anyone who was downtrodden in any way. But seeing her this year he realized his feelings for her had matured, he didn't just wonder what kissing her perfectly heart shaped mouth would taste like, don't get him wrong, he still spent a lot of time thinking about that, but now he wondered about more. He wondered what kept her awake at night, what her favourite colour was, what it would be like to tell her all of his secrets and have her tell him hers in return. He was falling for her, he realized with a jolt, George was never going to let him live this down.

Despite the fact that the students from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang wouldn't be arriving until 5:30 that evening and that they had a free period directly before that Aphrodite still leapt onto Una's bed at 6:12 on Friday morning, singing a muggle song she didn't recognize loudly, end result of which was that all the other girls in the sixth year dormitory threw whatever objects they could reach at Aph, a lot of which hit Una.

"For Merlin's sake, Aphrodite!" Una shoved at Aph attempting to roll over.

"Oh no you don't!" Aphrodite grabbed Una's shoulder, "My order of Sleakeazys just arrived, lets wash our hair before breakfast!" Una glared blearily at Aph through one sleepy eye.

"You owe me, so hard..."

Una had to admit her hair did look a lot healthier, her shock of magically dyed red hair had a healthy shine to it that it hadn't ever had before and her usually fluffy waves were now more like soft ringlets, admiring herself in the milk pitcher she barely noticed the eyes that were on her from the other side f the table.

"Looking good Pendragon!" Lee Jordan called across the kippers, "Fancy coming with me in to Hogsmeade on Saturday?" Lee grinned at her cheekily across the table.

"Even if I wanted to I have detention with Hagrid on Saturday." She replied, her cheeks burning.

"A bad girl, my favourite." Lees eyebrows raised suggestively "How about after dinner tonight me and you..." He trailed off in what he clearly thought was a seductive manner but before Una could reply a grouchy voice cut across her.

"She said no Lee." Fred was standing behind Una, looking aggravated.

"She can speak for herself Fred!" Suddenly inexplicably cross, Una stood and stomped off to her first class, Defence Against the Dark Arts.

"Una!" Fred caught up to her halfway across the entry hall, Una swung around, her early start equipping her with anger for an argument.

"What Fred?!" Her eyes blazing she watched with some satisfaction as he shrunk away from her, despite the fact that she was several inches shorter than him.

"You just forgot your bag..." He looked uncertain, almost self-conscious all of a sudden, it hurt her to see him vulnerable on account of her.

"Oh, I... Thanks, look I'm sor..."

"No it's, it's fine, I know you can look after yourself." He looked sheepish now, "See you in detention?"

"Yeah, looking forward to it" She tried for a casual chuckle but her throat was suddenly constricted. All of a sudden she was unbearably shy, she nodded jerkily and spun away across the hall.

'This is not good...' She thought to herself as she settled in a desk in Professor Moody's classroom, blessedly this was the one class she had away from Aphrodites prying eyes. She looked up as someone sat next to her, she may not have Aph here but she had completely forgotten she was in the same Defense Against the Dark Arts class as Fred. Judging by his pink face he had forgotten as well, their awkward goodbye in the entrance hall still playing in both of their heads they both tried to act natural, one thing was for sure, this was easily the most awkward class they had ever shared.


End file.
